Memphis parks renaming committee meets again Monday

New names for three city parks will be heard and discussed by city council members as they push to a conclusion on the lightning-rod issue.

Memphis Park, Mississippi River Park and Health Sciences Park were set as placeholder names for parks with Confederate-themed names that had long stirred controversy in Memphis.

Council members will consider dozens of names collected in a public hearing earlier this month and from a city website set up for suggestions from citizens. The renaming committee will meet again Monday at 3:30 p.m. in the fifth-floor conference room at Memphis City Hall.

But it turns out a lot of citizens with suggestions weren't Memphis citizens.

"You get 60 people to come to a committee meeting about hearing the names and renaming the parks and half of them do not live within the Memphis city limits," said Harold Collins, a council member and co-chairman of the parks renaming committee. "That tells me that there are people who have a greater interest outside of Memphis about keeping the names in the form of the Confederacy than those who live inside of Memphis."

Collins said he hope the committee will wrap up its work and have a names to present to the full council within a month. The decision needs to be made as the council forms the city's budget in the next two months because the name changes will bring some costs, he said.

Council member Bill Boyd chairs the renaming committee with Collins and said it has collected nearly 600 names submitted by citizens. An overwhelming majority of the respondents, he said, wanted to retain the original park names.

"There were three of four (people at the public hearing) who wanted a combination of names on both sides of the issue, so to speak," Boyd said. "There were several African Americans in that category who said leave but add to the history."